Name

Goo Goo Dolls lead singer John Rzeznik wrote this about his childhood. He sings it to his sisters who raised him; both his parents died when he was young and his father was an alcoholic. The line, "We're grown up orphans who never knew their names" reflects his past. The title, though, and the line "And I won't tell no one your name," have a different inspiration that wasn't revealed until much later: Rzeznik's almost-romance with MTV VJ Kennedy, who tried to keep her real name secret. In her book The Kennedy Chronicles, she recalls how she and the singer shared a brief kiss and a series of flirtatious phone calls but didn't pursue anything more because he was married. In her interview with Rzeznik, included in the book, he admits, "It was pretty interesting to have a song inspired by a moment. And I thought it was a very sweet song." Rzeznik thanks Kennedy in the song credits, using her real name, Lisa Montgomery.

This was the Goo Goo Dolls' first hit. They had released four albums by then and had a large following in upstate New York, but this brought them national fame.

For The Goo Goo Dolls, this ballad was not typical of their sound. Considered an "alternative" group, "Name" crossed over to Pop and Adult Contemporary radio, greatly increasing their fan base, but alienating some core listeners who were used to their harder sound. "It's one component of what we do, but usually we're a lot harder," Rzeznik conceded in a 1995 interview with The Morning Call. "I wouldn't start writing songs like 'Name' all the time just because I thought that's what people wanted to hear. I'll write a song in the same vein because it's what I want to write."